I put the Shan in Shantasia

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So I did not let the events of the previous post stop me from venturing out to the country. Oh no, the very next weekend, I got straight back on that horse (I’m still undecided if that pun was intended).

A couple of Sundays ago, my friend Emma thought it would be nice to take our city dwelling friends (Sydney, Melbourne, London) into the wilds of Mongolia on a horse riding adventure.

These are the types of photos you should be seeing in this post…

(FYI: This stunning photo is of my friend Susie. I stole it from her very awesome blog. Well worth a read, especially now that she’s just put up her Eagle Festival pix.)

… but instead of photos like the above, you get this:

Now, there were several things that happened on this particular day that maybe we should have taken as signs to turn back. Like, the only available coffee was in a can and would make our “heart sweet”.

But soon after the shot of Mike and Kai looking under the bonnet (or hood, if you’re American), they proudly announced they were able to “override the problem”. Hmm… again, some of you may have taken this as a sign… but not us, oh no, we are stupid fearless foreigners.

So onward we went, which was great, as it allowed me to take this great photo:

This is where the car decided to die completely. Pretty much in the middle of Mongolia (read: nowhere).

Now, it’s not all bad news, as I am here to write the blog entry. And, we were travelling in two cars, with wine and snacks.

So we didn’t go horse riding, big deal! There were other highlights of the day, and I’ll do my best to capture them here:

The city slickers ran into the little shop in the middle of nowhere to see if they coud get a latte or cappucino.

After the boys fixed the first problem, Jess, the Melbournite, asked: “Does anyone consider it a risk that our brake lights don’t work?” To which the Queenslanders responded, “nah, she’ll be right, mate, in fact, we’re pretty sure that working brake lights just confuses the locals!”.

Emma and I could see Dasha, the sick-as-a-dog Sydney-sider, tearing out of the broken down car and up to us in the second car. When she got in, she told us another great solution had been put forward… it involved reversing the car really quickly and slamming on the brakes so the brake pads would realign. My guess is that’s why the car died completely.

In our convoy of two cars filled with stupid round-eyes, we took a wrong turn and ended up in a small Mongolian military town.

Mike screamed like a girl when we almost had a head on (but don’t worry Mum, because we didn’t crash).

Oh yeah, and on the way back into town, we got pulled over by the cops. The last time this happened to Mike, they suspended his Mongolian license. So he was a little stressed. Even more stressed when he couldn’t find his wallet which had his license and Alien Registration card in it. Good news, it was underneath a pile of beanies, and gloves, and scarves in the front seat. Even better news, he got to keep his license. What’s so funny about this, you ask? As the cop handed back his documents, and nodded for us to go, Mike graciously said “sain baina uu!”. This caused the cop to lower and shake his head, and mutter something which I swear was “idiot!”. You see, “sain baina uu” does not mean “thank you”, or “good bye”, or “cheers mate, I really appreciate you going easy on me” but more like… “oh hi! good to see you! how are you? are you keeping well?”.

So on that note, there really is only one thing left to say: sain baina uu!

This will no doubt amuse some of you, but twice in one week I found myself on a horse.

(why is it that I can visualise one of my oldest friends, Jules, laughing hysterically at this?!)

But with such stunning scenery, it’s a no brainer as to why I’ve signed up for more horseback adventures… even the sub-zero temperatures that are about to hit will not stop this Jillaroo-wannabe from going (it’s in my blood!).